A disproportionate amount of the time I dedicate to this blog is spent vetting information. Last week some fishwife said that salíndatô (rainbow runner, a fish I have yet to try) belongs to the same family as the tanguigue (mackerel). Having recently done a post on tuna, I was sure she was wrong. It took a while — I wanted to be equally sure about salíndatô being Elagatis bipinnulata — but there it was: mackerel and tuna one family; galunggong (scad), saminán/talakitok (trevally), and salíndatô another.
As for the scallops in the dish above, I can confidently say they are the kind known as Asian moon, sometimes sun-and-moon (one flap white, the other brown on the outside). When I order tipáy (also known as talipsay), I mean these babies, not the thicker-shelled kalyong some restaurants are apt to serve, which look more like large cockles — thanks, but no.
Speaking of restaurants, it is easy to grouse about how expensive an order of baked scallops is, say. So you decide to make it yourself; see how much more live ones you get for the same price you paid for the dish at Kiosko? Then you get home and clean them: Yikes! Who knew there was so much mud in there? And the occasional pea crab, too — a parasite, not a prey, just so you know. Long story short, preparing scallops is a bitch. But now you’re in for the long haul, and you have yet to whip up compound butter, mince garlic (tip: get yourself a Wonder Chopper), and grate cheese. And now it occurs to you that you should have bought salíndatô instead. Isn’t cooking fun?
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